Wisconsin People & Ideas – Fall 2018

Gender, Memory & the Aging Brain Emerging research from neuropsychologist Karyn Frick

Cranberries • Our Energy Democracy • Anti-Portraiture

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WISCONSIN ACADEMY STAFF Jane Elder • Executive Director Augusta Brulla • Head Gallery Attendant, James Watrous Gallery Chelsea Chandler • Director, Environmental Initiatives Jody Clowes • Director, James Watrous Gallery Kelly Hilyard • Program Assistant, Environmental Initiatives Angela Johnson • Exhibitions Coordinator, James Watrous Gallery Bethany Jurewicz • Business & Events Manager Matt Rezin • Data & Office Systems Coordinator Amanda E. Shilling • Development Director Jason A. Smith • Associate Director and Editor, Wisconsin People & Ideas Nikita Werner • Administrative Assistant OFFICERS OF THE BOARD Tim Size • President Patricia Brady • President-elect Linda Ware • Immediate Past President Rich Donkle • Treasurer L. Jane Hamblen • Secretary (Interim) Richard Burgess • Vice President of Sciences Vacant • Vice President of Arts L. Jane Hamblen • Vice President of Letters Andrew Richards • Foundation President STATEWIDE BOARD OF DIRECTORS John Ashley, Sauk City Kimberly Blaeser, Burlington Malcolm Brett, Oregon Frank D. Byrne, Madison Roberta Filicky-Peneski, Sheboygan Joseph Heim, La Crosse Tom Luljak, Milwaukee Jane Elder, Madison Robert D. Mathieu, Madison Michael Morgan, Milwaukee Bernie L. Patterson, Stevens Point Kevin Reilly, Verona Nathan Wautier, Madison Marty Wood, Eau Claire OFFICERS OF THE ACADEMY FOUNDATION Foundation Founder: Ira Baldwin (1895–1999) Andrew Richards • Foundation President Freda Harris • Foundation Vice President Rich Donkle • Foundation Treasurer Arjun Sanga • Foundation Secretary

Editor’s Note My wife once asked me why we print photo essays in the magazine. “Photos are everywhere online and everyone has a camera these days,” she said. “So, why bother?”

While she was playing devil’s advocate (Liz knows I love photography), she had a point. According to the annual Internet Trends report by tech guru Mary Meeker, in 2014 alone people uploaded an average of 1.8 billion digital images every single day. With 657 billion photos per year added to the photographic catalog of life on Earth, why bother with a dozen or so in the magazine?

I guess I see the ubiquity of photography as a reason to commit to publishing images created by professionals, and showing them in our James Watrous Gallery, so that people can interact with them on their own terms—and in their own time.

In this issue we feature the work of photographer Stephen Milanowski, whose candid images of everyday people at public events capture a certain raw humanity that is rare in most portraiture.

Back in August, I met with Steve at his studio in Middleton to talk about his work and review some possible photographs for this issue. Steve has been making images for over forty years, and he has a massive collection of large-format prints. What got my attention right away, though, was a series of images he had taken at a 2016 rally in Janesville for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

While fascinated by the portraits he made of people both for and against Trump, I quickly realized that these images weren’t a good fit for the magazine. Why? Because one of my main rules for magazine articles is that they need to complicate our understanding of who we are as Wisconsinites and, perhaps more to the point, human beings.

For some of our readers (myself included), it would be difficult to see Trump supporters, clad in profanity-laden t-shirts and American flag-themed sweaters—as anything other than representative of the current political moment.

Perhaps, when this moment has passed, we’ll be able to look at Steve’s Trump rally photos and see these people for who they are: our friends and neighbors, our fellow Americans.

Patrick Stutz Photography

The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters

FOUNDATION DIRECTORS Mark Bradley Patricia Brady Jane Elder Jack Kussmaul Tim Size Linda Ware

Wisconsin Academy Steenbock Center Offices 1922 University Avenue • Madison, WI 53726 ph 608-263-1692 • wisconsinacademy.org

Jason A. Smith, Editor

On the cover: Karyn Frick, a neuropsychologist at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, is leading the charge to treat memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease. Photo by Troye Fox/ UWM Photos.

FALL 2018

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CONTENTS 08

04 From the Director 05 Letters 06 Happenings Wisconsin Table

08 The Sweet and Tart of Cranberries

Candice Wagener

Report

14 Finding Your Role in Our Energy Democracy

Ingrid HS

Chelsea Chandler

Photo Essay

20 Life’s Rich Pageant

Stephen Milanowski

Discovery

28 Gender, Memory and the Aging Brain

Laura L. Otto

@ the Watrous Gallery

34 Maggie Sasso and Nathaniel Stern

Jody Clowes

Nathaniel Stern, dancer, 2018.

Multi-panel performative image metal print on aluminum, 18 x 13 inches.

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WISCONSIN PEOPLE & IDEAS

Nathaniel Stern, from Autumnal Tints

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20

Stephen Milanowski

VOLUME 64 · NUMBER 4 FALL 2018

Fiction

42 Aeshnidae 2nd-Place 2018 Contest Winner

Jack Harris

Poetry

48 New Wisconsin Poetry 2018 Contest Honorable Mentions

Anna Hahm, Kathryn Gahl, Elisabeth Harrahy, Jeri McCormick

Wisconsin People & Ideas (ISSN 15589633) is the quarterly magazine of the nonprofit Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. Wisconsin Academy members receive an annual subscription to this magazine.

Since 1954, Wisconsin People & Ideas has been a trusted resource for people who care about the issues and ideas that shape life in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin People & Ideas publishes fiction and poetry from Wisconsin writers, highlights new works from our visual artists and photographers, and covers science and environmental issues that affect Wisconsin’s people, lands, and waters.

Copyright © 2018 by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

Postage is paid in Madison, Wisconsin.

Book Reviews

WISCONSIN PEOPLE & IDEAS

JASON A. SMITH editor

52 Boy into Panther and Other Stories, by Margaret Benbow Ronnie Hess

53 The Collected Stories of Carol Wobig, by Carol Wobig

Elizabeth Wyckoff

54 To This I Am Native, by Richard Quinney

Paul Buhle

55 Wisconsin State Parks: Extraordinary Stories of Geology

JEAN LANG copy editor JODY CLOWES arts editor CHARLOTTE FRASCONA cold reader HUSTON DESIGN design & layout

and Natural History, by Scott Spoolman

Mark Zimmermann

facebook.com/WisconsinAcademy twitter.com/WASAL instagram.com/WatrousGallery

Wisconsin thought and culture Become an Academy member and support programs and publications that explore, explain, and sustain Wisconsin thought and culture.

Visit wisconsinacademy.org/membership.

From the Director

I

was born into a family where the value of education was never questioned. My mother told stories of how her Swedish-speaking father taught her to read using a matchstick to point out each word as he read it aloud. While my grandmother clung to the old country, my grandfather emphasized that all the children should speak English at home so they would learn faster in school. For an immigrant family in the grips of the Great Depression, a good education was a ray of hope for a better future.

In my generation, we were expected to apply ourselves in school so that we would have more opportunities than our parents did.

When I went off to college, it was assumed by my parents that I would get a job after graduation. But the emphasis was always on getting an education. What an extraordinary gift that was.

Today, so many young students I know feel pressured to articulate their career goals before they even apply to college. And many, facing the staggering cost of higher education, are also pressured to fit into science, technology, engineering, mathematic, or healthcare career programs that will most certainly lead to “a good job.” Society needs expertise and good professionals in all these areas, of course, but it also needs creative problem solvers, effective communicators, thoughtful humanists, and citizens with a breadth of knowledge as well as a depth.

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In 2017 the American Academy of Arts & Sciences released The Future of Undergraduate Education, The Future of America, a report that clearly outlines the challenges of our times: “As we grapple with persistent social inequities, widening political divisions, prolonged international conflict, and intensifying environmental challenges, we often seem more concerned with the limits of our present capabilities than in the realization of our dreams.” The report offers a way “to regain our momentum” by re-committing to the promise of education. “Education is not the solution to every problem,” notes AAAS president Jonathan F. Fanton in the introduction to the report, “but it is often the best tool we have at our disposal, and there is reason to believe it has been the primary source of our greatest achievements over the past century.” At a presentation on the report, a speaker summarized what a re-commitment to the promise of education might actually look like: An undergraduate education that “prepare[s] students for career success, active, effective citizenship, and a richer cultural and personal life.”

Education and knowledge are about more than a great job. An educated citizenry is one of the foundations of a healthy democracy, and a richer cultural and personal life is one of the ways we achieve that elusive pursuit of happiness. For these reasons alone, the report deserves attention.

This year, the Academy is exploring the promise of education in two Academy Talks and a spring conference that examine the ways in which higher education can help us reach higher and farther as individuals—and as a society. We hope you’ll join us in re-committing to the promise of education, and share your ideas with us over the coming year.

Jane Elder, Executive Director

Member News

NEWS for MEMBERS CHANGES TO TALKS REGISTRATION Beginning this fall, the Wisconsin Academy is requiring paid registrations for non-Academy members who attend our Academy Talks at Overture Center in Madison. Paid registration is one place we have identified to offset rising Talks-related costs while still providing the quality and diverse programming our members enjoy. Academy members will receive e-mails in advance of every event with a code to be used for gratis online registration. If you would like to check the status of your membership or have questions about registration, please contact us at members@wisconsinacademy.org.

AMAZON SMILE Shop Amazon and do good! Please consider adding the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters (EIN 39-1054856) as your charity of choice when you make Amazon purchases through smile.amazon.com. Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases.

NEW DATES FOR WRITING CONTESTS Beginning in 2019, our annual Fiction & Poetry Contests have a new submission window: January 15 to March 15. Contest winners in both the fiction and poetry categories receive awards of $100 to $500, publication in Wisconsin People & Ideas, and a reading at the Wisconsin Book Festival. Academy members receive discounts on their fiction ($5 off) and poetry submissions ($2 off). For more contest details, visit wisconsinacademy.org/contests.

GIVE THE GIFT OF MEMBERSHIP Are you looking for the perfect gift for the curiosity seeker in your life? Share your love of Wisconsin with a Wisconsin Academy gift membership (which includes an annual subscription to Wisconsin People & Ideas). To purchase a gift membership, visit wisconsinacademy.org/membership today.

Letters Just a short note to say I think your Summer 2018 issue is splendid, one of the best you and the staff have produced. It has a wide range, reflecting the Academy’s foundations, and its articles are engaging in both scope and depth. The graphic layout is inviting and the photos are stunning. Thanks for your continuing professional excellence.

Richard Swanson, Madison

I enjoyed your recent magazine (Summer 2018), especially the articles on Dr. Michael Fiore’s work and wild ginseng. It turns out that I have personal history with both. Fiore played a major role in the efforts to ban the toxic pesticide aldicarb, which was used extensively in the Central Sands to control the Colorado potato beetle until the CDC called in Fiore to investigate. He and his team concluded that aldicarb inhibits human immune function, which led to it being removed from Wisconsin in 1985 and the worldwide market in 2015. I was covering the aldicarb story when I worked at the Stevens Point Journal, and I noted then that scientists like Byron Shaw at UWSP, who knew and were talking about the dangers of aldicarb, just weren’t being heard. It took an expert from out of state to overcome bias against local researchers like Shaw.

Regarding ginseng, I used to work summers with the forestry department in Green Bay (a great job!), and several full-timers supplemented their city wages by hunting for wild-grown roots.

Later, when I worked at the Wausau Daily Herald, the million-dollar ginseng industry in Marathon was really taking off, and we wrote about visiting buyers from China and the Marathon High School kids who dropped out of college to work the family ginseng fields.

It’s great to see new chapters being added to these Wisconsin stories through your magazine. Keep up the good work.

Bill Berry, Stevens Point

For decades I have had a subscription to Wisconsin People & Ideas.

Of course, the value of the Academy earns my loyalty. But this issue (Summer 2018) really had a new vitality—great variety, depth, and visual verve. Too, the ginseng piece offers evidence that good editors are primarily “no slouches” at writing. Enjoyed.

Michael Belongie, Beaver Dam

FALL 2018

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Happenings

F I S H E D U C AT I O N The next lake sturgeon you see might have grown up at the Wild Rose Fish Hatchery. Established over a hundred years ago, the hatchery recently completed a major renovation that included replacing aging and inefficient fish-rearing facilities and providing a new water supply that meets current groundwater standards. Today the state-of-the-art facility produces mainly predator fish—27% of all trout and salmon stocked statewide, 64% of northern pike, and 100% of lake sturgeon—to be released into Green Bay and Lake Michigan in order to help restore a more natural, balanced fish community and provide enhanced fishing opportunities for the public.

The recent renovation also included the establishment of the Wild Rose Fish Hatchery Education Center, which showcases the history fish hatcheries in Wisconsin and provides hands-on activities such as a fish hatchery lab and spin-browser kiosk that take visitors behind the scenes into fish hatchery production. The center’s two 300-gallon aquariums, record wall of 26 Wisconsin fish species, and exhibits about aquatic invasive species and Lake Michigan help visitors understand the importance of fish management while inculcating a sense of wonder at the abundance of aquatic wildlife in our state.

WI DNR/Wild Rose State Fish Hatchery

A recent exhibit called “Ancient Lake Sturgeon, A 100 Million-Year History” traces the history of the fish, which shared time and space with the dinosaurs, survived the last ice age, and encountered Native Americans and settlers in the state as well.

While the hatchery and education center are closed to the public during the winter months, they will resume visiting hours and educational events in April 2019.

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WISCONSIN PEOPLE & IDEAS

Happenings

FELLOWS I N TH E N EWS FA R M M U S E U M Agriculture is big business in Wisconsin, contributing $88.3 billion annually to the state’s economy. Wisconsin is home to 68,500 farms on 14.3 million acres that employ around 150,000 people.

Yet even though agriculture seems omnipresent in our state, many Wisconsinites know little about where the food they eat actually comes from. The newly opened Farm Wisconsin Discovery Center is working to bridge that knowledge gap by offering interactive exhibits and events that bring the Wisconsin farm experience to visitors of all ages.

Located in the Town of Newton on Highway 43, just south of Manitowoc, the $13 million facility features hands-on and interactive exhibits that allow visitors to explore a diverse array of farm products as well as advances in agricultural technology and science.

The main building, shaped like a traditional Wisconsin barn, holds the exhibition space, a theater, and a 300-person conference center, as well as a gift shop and café that sell cheese, ice cream, and other Wisconsin-made products. At the center’s Land O’Lakes Birthing Barn visitors have a chance to see pregnant cows give birth

Farm Wisconsin Discovery Center

and observe the first days of newborn calves. An adjacent facility also has classrooms for Lakeshore Technical College’s Dairy Herd Management and Agribusiness and Technology programs.

The birthing barn and guided tours to nearby Grotegut farm (which provides the cows for the birthing barn) offer an important glimpse into a dairy farming tradition that seems to be disappearing from our state. Since the beginning of 2018, Wisconsin has lost 429 dairies and is on track to see its largest decline in dairy farms since 2013. The Farm Wisconsin Discovery Center will, however, keep the story of the Wisconsin farm alive and continue to work to bring us closer to the farms and farmers that provide our food.

Academy Fellows are the best and brightest of our friends and colleagues. Learn more about them at wisconsinacademy.org/fellows.

Sarah Day

The story of one of opera’s most unforgettable stars is brought to life by American Players Theatre favorite and Madison native Sarah Day (2018) as Florence Foster Jenkins. Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins, written by Stephen Temperley and produced by Four Seasons Theatre, will run from December 6–16 in the Playhouse at Overture Center for the Arts, Madison.

Don’t miss this wonderful opportunity to see Day portray a New York socialite whose generosity and love of opera was matched only by her own delusions of vocal grandeur.

Head of the Lakes: Selected Short Stories (Nodin Press, 2018), a new book by Superior-based author Anthony Bukoski (2018) was selected for Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Chapter a Day” program, hosted by Norman Gilliland, available online at wpr.org. In addition to Head of the Lakes, Bukowski has published five well-reviewed short story collections that explore the life and times of the working-class residents of his hometown, including Polonaise, Children of Strangers, and Time Between Trains, which garnered a Booklist “Editor’s Choice” recognition and was selected as one of the best books of 2003 for public libraries.

Warrington Colescott (1988), an internationally acclaimed printmaker, artist, and emeritus art professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, passed away at his home in Hollandale at age 97. Best known for his satirical etchings and groundbreaking graphic style, Colescott was recognized by several major honors and fellowships, including a Fulbright Fellowship (1957), a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1965), and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1979) and (1983). In addition to creating a significant body of work, Colescott was also author (with Arthur O. Hove) of Progressive Printmakers: Wisconsin Artists and the Print Renaissance (University of Wisconsin Press, 1999). Colescott will be missed by the Wisconsin art community, former students, and Academy friends.

FALL 2018

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Wisconsin Table

THE SWEET AND TART

OF CRANBERRIES

BY CAN D I CE WAG EN ER

C

hances are that Wisconsin’s number one fruit crop will make an appearance on your

table this Thanksgiving. The American, or largefruited, cranberry, Vaccinium macrocarpon, has been a holiday staple since the first Thanksgiving meal in 1621 (a true story, according to historians). Today Americans consume nearly 400 million pounds of cranberries per year—2.3 pounds per person—almost entirely in the form of juice or juice blends.

The town of Warrens in Monroe County, where these cranberries are being harvested, is the epicenter of cranberry production in Wisconsin. Every year the town celebrates the fall harvest with the Warrens Cranberry Festival, the largest cranberry-related arts and crafts festival in the United States.

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Wisconsin Table

Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association

FALL 2018

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Wisconsin Table

Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association

According to the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association, the cranberry industry provides nearly $1 billion in annual revenue for Wisconsin, which produces over half the world’s supply of this tart and tiny fruit. Around 250 farms in Wisconsin grow cranberries on 21,000 acres, mainly in the Central Sands region of the state, and the cranberry industry overall provides 4,000 jobs.

One of three commercially developed fruit crops native to North America—blueberry and Concord grape are the others—the cranberry has been commercially cultivated in Wisconsin since 1860.

But our history with Wisconsin’s official state fruit predates European settlement in the region. According to the American Phytopathological Society, wild cranberries were a reliable food source for Native American peoples who also incorporated cranberry pulp into a poultice for treating wounds and used the juice as a dye for blankets and rugs. French-Canadian voyageurs learned from Native Americans how to make pemmican, essentially an early version of a power bar made of dried cranberries combined with fat and game meat that could last for months.

Native Americans passed along their traditional knowledge about cranberries as an extraordinarily healthy food. High in fiber and vitamins A, C, and K, cranberries are also cholesterol- and fat-free.

In addition, they have very high levels of antioxidants, compounds that help prevent cellular deterioration, and phytochemicals known as a proanthocyanidins that inhibit bacteria.

Part of what gives cranberries their unique properties is the relatively acidic soil in which they grow. According to Matt Lippert, Wood County’s UW–Extension Agricultural Agent, cranberries

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need abundant water and low pH soils to grow well. Areas of glacial retreat in central and northern Wisconsin present especially ideal growing conditions. Monroe County, near Warrens, holds the highest concentration of cranberry farms, but there are plenty of other farms in Wood County (especially between Wisconsin Rapids and Babcock), as well as the northern counties of Vilas, Oneida, and Price.

Thanks to the familiar commercials made by Ocean Spray, which pretty much dominates the American market, many of us have a mental image of a waders-clad farmer, waist-deep in the cranberry marsh. But this marshy image represents only a brief moment of the cranberry’s growth and harvest cycle.

Instead of growing in water, cranberry plants flourish in dry marshes composed of alternating layers of sand and organic matter (usually peat). A perennial vine, cranberries take three years to establish and start bearing fruit. UW–Extension’s Lippert notes that, left alone, unharvested cranberry plants put down additional roots along the stem, creating a new plant exactly like their parent plant in a process called clonal reproduction.

Lippert says that most farmers propagate the plants by mowing a bed of vines and placing the cuttings on an open bed of pure sand.

The cuttings are raked so that the tips are pushed into the sand and then watered. An entire bed of identical plants can be produced from the cuttings of an old bed. When the plants are firmly established through a fine yet shallow root system about six inches deep, they create a thick mat of interwoven vines. Some vines become runners that expand the surface area of the plant. Others grow upward,

Wisconsin Table

forming small, pink blossoms that bear a striking resemblance to the head and neck of a sandhill crane, which is why the early Dutch and German settlers took to calling the fruit craneberries.

The work of growing cranberries begins in the spring, between April and May, when farmers use floodwaters to control the early stages of some insect pests and remove old leaf debris. Because frost occurs more frequently in the low-lying areas where cranberries grow, flooding ,along with overhead irrigation, is also used to protect against frost damage to the soon-to-open flower buds.

Produced by the plant near the end of the prior growing season, terminal buds that survive an entire Wisconsin winter open around the middle of June. In a single field are millions of flowers that need to be pollinated. So farmers introduce honeybee and bumblebee colonies to take on the work of pollinating the pink blossoms that by late July have transformed into immature, green fruits.

As September rolls around and the nights become cooler, the fruit turns from green to red. October and November are when we see farmers in waders sloshing through marshes that are flooded to allow easier harvesting of the berries.

Because the cranberry has four interior air chambers, known as locules, it floats, making marsh-flooding the most efficient method for harvesting the fruit. Historically, cranberries were taken by dry harvest, using hand rakes attached to a capture bucket at the base.

According to Lippert, this method does create a berry that will stay stable for a longer period of time. But, because these days only 5% of the fruit is used fresh, water is used for almost all harvesting.

There is a slight difference between the way cranberries destined to be used fresh and those meant to be processed are harvested. To gather fresh cranberries, a picking machine with small tines gently combs through plants submerged in four to six inches of water.

The berries are gently moved by conveyor belt to drying boxes with slatted bottoms, to be stored in heavily insulated or mechanically refrigerated buildings until sorted and packaged for retail sale.

The other 95% of the berries, destined for processing into juice, sauce, or sweetened dried cranberries, are harvested in eight to ten inches of water using a harrow, a small machine with a circular wheel that slowly paddles through the bed, gently knocking berries off the vines. This is the point when the farmers put on their waders, get in the water, and corral the floating berries to the edge of the marsh, where they will be pumped out. These berries are then delivered to a receiving station where they are graded, cleaned, and frozen for future use.

After the last of the cranberries are harvested by mid-November, the marshes are once again flooded with water; this time, enough to create a protective layer of ice about a foot above the submerged vines.

Another pre-winter preparation that growers take on about every three years is adding about a quarter inch of sand to the bed, which filters down to the vines with the ice thaw in spring to provide new rooting capacity for existing vines. While most commercial cranberry plants have an average lifespan of anywhere from ten to fifty years, it is not unheard of for plants to last as long as a hundred years.

They don’t have any hundred-year-old plants at Russell Rezin & Son, according to Amber Schultz, though her family has been growing cranberries on a 230-acre marsh in Warrens since 1918. At

For Amber Schultz and her family, there is no sweeter fruit than the cranberry. She says she loves this land and is proud of her work.

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Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association

Jim Bible of Brockway Cranberry in Black River Falls wades through a flooded cranberry marsh as berries are about to be gathered.

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26 years old, Schultz represents the fifth generation of growers in her family.

Schultz has been surrounded by cranberries for as long as she can remember. As a child she would ride along with her dad to check on frost conditions,and help out with harvest when she could. She did leave for a period of time to attend college in La Crosse and worked at a few different jobs. But Schultz had an epiphany that the cranberry farm was the place she would finally call home.

Schultz says that being a cranberry farmer and establishing a productive marsh is not for everyone, a sentiment reflected by Amaya Atucha, a fruit crop specialist in the Horticulture Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who studies cranberry vine physiology and how the plants cope with environmental stresses. “I’ve never heard of anyone ever calling me because they want to start a cranberry marsh,” says Atucha, pointing out that, like Schultz, most growers today come from multi-generational farms and that establishing a new marsh is very expensive.

According to Atucha, pest and disease management are two big challenges for cranberry growers. While certain pests are very well understood, and growers know how to target them using integrated pest management and other low-pesticide methods, climate change is affecting current and new pest populations. “Some insects that weren’t considered pests, are now appearing in higher numbers or earlier in the season, which in some cases can result in production loss,” she says. “Climate change has also affected temperature

Wisconsin Table

and precipitation patterns, which can impact the growth and viability of plants while driving populations of invasive weeds.”

Atucha says that “cranberry growers are very conscious about pesticide and fertilizer use because their production systems require the use of water more than other crops.” Every cranberry grower in Wisconsin must secure an approved (by Atucha or another certified crop consultant) nutrient management plan that confirms the fertilizers they are applying match the needs of the crop. Growers use their own yield records and the results from plant tissue analysis by labs such as the UW Soil and Forage LAB in Marshfield to design the fertility plan for the following year.

To help growers address nutrient deficiencies or excesses, UW–Madison researchers and agencies such as the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and the State of Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection have developed a certification program to help growers develop successful nutrient management plans for their marshes.

Atucha underscores how the regular review of best practices and constant monitoring of chemical inputs by cranberry growers isn’t typical of all crop growers in Wisconsin. “I really wish others would be doing this,” she says, adding that cranberry growers are also working hard to better inform consumers about the practices involved in cranberry production.

By working with state agencies, the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association, and fruit crop experts such as Amaya Atucha and others at UW–Madison, Wisconsin cranberry growers will likely weather a recent glut in inventory and changes to export tariff guidelines that have contributed to a decline in prices.

But there are other reasons that the cranberry is here to stay in Wisconsin. For Amber Schultz and her family, there is no sweeter fruit. She says she loves this land and is proud of her work. “Cranberry growing is in my blood. This is what I need to be doing. I wouldn’t trade anything for what we have out here.”

CRANBERRY OAT SQUARES INGREDIENTS For the crust: 1 ¼ cups gingersnap cookie crumbs (approx. 20 cookies.) ¼ cup crushed pecans ¼ cup melted butter (salted) For the filling: 1 package (12 oz.) fresh or frozen cranberries ½ cup sugar ½ cup orange juice, divided 1 tablespoon corn starch For the topping: ½ cup flour ½ cup old fashioned oats ⅓ cup brown sugar ¼ cup cold butter (salted) ¼ cup chopped pistachios ¼ teaspoon cinnamon

DIRECTIONS Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8 x 8-inch baking pan.

In a bowl, combine the cookie crumbs, pecans, and melted butter. Spread into the pan and pat down.

In a sauce pan over medium heat, combine the cranberries, sugar, and half of the orange juice. Cook for 15 minutes, just until the cranberries start to soften.

Candice Wagener is a freelance writer and regular contributor to Brava and Isthmus, and she’s excited to add Wisconsin People & Ideas to her list of publications. Wagener lives in Middleton with her husband and two rambunctious boys who make her laugh every day.

Whisk together remaining orange juice and the cornstarch and pour into the cooked cranberry mixture. Increase the heat to high and boil for one minute. Remove from the heat and let cool. In another bowl, combine the topping ingredients and mix well until the flour is incorporated.

Pour the cooled cranberry mixture over the crust, spreading evenly. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the cranberry mixture. Press down lightly. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until the topping is light brown. Cool completely before cutting.

Makes 9 bars.

Provided by Michael Riege of Colgate, Wisconsin, the 2nd place winner of the 2015 First Quarter Recipe Contest from the Wisconsin Cranberry Discovery Center.

FALL 2018

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Report

FINDING YOUR ROLE IN OUR

ENERGY DEMOCRACY

BY CH ELSEA CHAN D LER

F

rom powering our homes, offices, and even cars, to fueling the industries that make just about every component found

in each, electricity is central to our modern lives. Yet, for all the positives that come with ubiquitous, relatively inexpensive electricity, the ways in which we generate and use it can have negative effects on our personal health—and the health of our planet. While the scientific consensus is clear that the burning of fossil fuels is accelerating global climate change, both our state and nation have yet to fully embrace economically viable, socially equitable methods of generating clean electricity.

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WISCONSIN PEOPLE & IDEAS

Report

It’s easy to get lost in—and feel like we have little control over— the complexities of our massive, interconnected energy system.

Often, decisions about how we conserve energy (such as using LED bulbs or turning off lights in empty rooms) happen on the individual level, and at the end-use phase of the electrical cycle, which can make us feel like our options are limited. Also, decisions surrounding electricity generation and use are made even more complex by myriad logistic and economic factors that at times can prevent us from seeing where we fit into the conversation. Because of these reasons, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed when we look beyond our own light switch to try to understand our role in the way electricity decisions are made.

H

ere in Wisconsin we generate most of our electricity by burning fossil fuels, such as coal, that contribute to climate change. Yet we can’t simply switch to a utility that provides only carbon-neutral electricity. This is in part because electricity generation and transmission require costly, long-term investments. This structure all but eliminates economic incentives to set up redundant utility services in a particular area. Long ago, Wisconsin

decided to allow utility companies to monopolize electricity generation and transmission in return for the right to regulate the way these utilities operate. Thus, today the utility that provides your electricity is based on your address.

Just because consumers can’t choose which utility provides their electricity, it doesn’t mean we don’t have a voice in how our utility operates. “Generally speaking, utilities are responsive to their customers. If customers are interested in certain programs or services, whether it be purchasing solar energy, or using Nest smart thermostats to regulate home energy consumption, utilities will be more motivated to offer and enhance those services,” observes Richard Heinemann, an attorney at Boardman & Clark LLP who focuses on energy law.

A good way to learn more about a utility’s green programs and services is by exploring its website, many of which feature a variety of resources that can help customers better understand their electricity bill. Search for green energy purchase options, opportunities to participate in community solar programs, and other renewable energy and energy efficiency programs that can save customers money and support cleaner, greener energy practices. Also, participation in these programs lets utilities know

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“ For better or worse, the world of electricity is full of nuance and complexities. By educating ourselves, we can make decisions that will shape the market and the future of the industry the way we want.”

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that they are valued by customers. If your utility does not have a particular renewable energy option or efficiency program you’re interested in, ask for it.

Robin Lisowski says that increasing customer satisfaction and maintaining a healthy bottom line are powerful incentives for utilities to deepen their investment in renewables. As Director of New Business at the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation (WECC), a nonprofit that works with utilities, local governments, and others to design and implement energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, Lisowski sees a “cross section of consumer support for clean energy” that bridges rural and urban as well as political divides. According to Lisowski, the message that “renewable energy can now achieve or beat cost parity with other fuel sources” is reaching Wisconsin’s major utilities, which are making historic investments in solar and wind installations and pairing them with ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals.

Increasing utility-level investment in renewable energy can also help address Wisconsin’s high retail electricity rates for consumers, which are among the priciest in the Midwest. High rates raise concerns over affordability, particularly for low- and fixed-income communities, for whom lack of electricity access can mean life or death during a heat wave or polar vortex, or when powering critical healthcare equipment. Some argue that access to affordable electricity—like access to water and food—should be considered a human right.

Understanding issues such as these can help consumers weigh tradeoffs concerning electricity-related matters on which they want to speak out. For instance, many people who support windgenerated electricity don’t want the transmission lines required to move electricity from distant wind farms running through their communities, citing potential degradation of natural resources, landscape aesthetics, or rural property values. In another example, those living quite some distance from generation and distribution infrastructure might feel compelled to stand with communities located near coal-fired electrical plants that suffer from elevated risks of asthma and cancer. Such plants are more likely to be located in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. Indeed, in the United States, race is the strongest indicator of living in close proximity to polluting facilities.

In both cases, communities adjacent to electricity infrastructure, as well as allies seeking to stand with those communities, may wish to speak out on the negative impacts they’re experiencing. Here as with other complex systems, such as food or transportation, understanding how the system works can help in weighing the pros and cons of proposed projects, and determining whether other alternatives are not only viable but beneficial for both-end use consumers and nearby residents affected by the project.

Tom Content, executive director of Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board (CUB), underscores the importance of understanding the tradeoffs inherent in making long-lasting energy decisions, such as “whether to invest in a new wind farm, close a coal plant, or build a new transmission line.” From his fourteen years covering energy issues for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to his work with CUB, Content knows that, “for better or worse, the world of electricity is full of nuance and complexities, probably more so than most prod-

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KNOW YOUR UTILITY PROVIDER Main St.

IOU

Muni

Co-op

Investor-Owned Utility

Municipal Utility

Cooperative Utility

Service area: Large, urban and rural

Service area: Small to mid-size towns

Service area: Small to mid-size, rural

Electricity sales in WI: 83% of retail market*

Electricity sales in WI: 11% of retail market*

Electricity sales in WI: 6% of retail market*

Structure: Private, for-profit

Structure: Public, nonprofit

Structure: Private, nonprofit

Business model: Provide return on investment

Business model: Provide at-cost electricity rates

Business model: Provide at-cost electricity rates

Owned by: Shareholders

Owned by: Local Government

Owned by: Members

Regulated by: Public Service Commission

Regulated by: Public Service Commission

Regulated by: Co-op boards of directors

*Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861, “Annual Electric Power Industry Report.”

ucts and services people buy.” He says that by educating ourselves, “consumers can make decisions that will shape the market and the future of the industry the way we want.”

I

n addition to gaining a basic understanding of utility-level renewable programs and a broader awareness of the socio-cultural context in which electrical utility decisions are made, people may wish to acquire more insight into the regulatory process in order to advocate for changes to our electrical system.

Electric utilities are called public utilities because they’re providing a public service: a safe, reliable supply of electricity.

Two broad, fundamental principles explain how the public utility system works, and why regulatory oversight is necessary. First, because a utility provides essential services for the well-being of society—both individuals and businesses—it requires protection from market forces that could disturb or diminish those services.

Second, the technological and economic features of the industry make it such that a single provider is often able to serve the overall

demand at a lower total cost than any combination of smaller entities.

Thus, what we end up with is, in essence, a “regulated monopoly,” says Content. “Instead of a market, utilities are regulated by the state, and that regulation is meant to serve as a proxy for a competitive market.” Content says that even though the state regulatory process “can make it seem like there’s no role for the public,” people “can and should play an important part in deciding how utilities operate.”

There are three types of electric utilities in Wisconsin: investorowned utilities (IOU), municipal (muni), and cooperative (co-op).

Because each type of utility has a different kind of business model, it’s important to get to know how they work before you insert yourself into the conversation (see above).

While co-ops are regulated by an elected board of directors, investor-owned and municipal utilities—which serve the majority of Wisconsinites—are regulated by the Public Service Commission (PSC). The PSC makes decisions it believes are in the public interest, such as increases in electricity rates and proposed

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YO U R PAT H T O CLEANER, GREENER ENERGY Wa n t t o l e a r n m o re a b o u t W i s c o n s i n ’ s electricity system and what role you can play in it? Visit the Academy’s interactive web

construction of new site generation resources and transmission lines. The PSC also sets funding levels for the state’s Focus on Energy program, which helps residents, businesses, and local governments implement energy efficiency and renewable energy measures.

People who want to have more of a say in the way their utilities are regulated can “file comments in rate cases, construction cases, or other issues before the PSC,” says Content. He notes that it is important to pay attention to the inserts in your utility bills, which often notify customers about upcoming rate changes or other big-impact decisions, as well as mentions of utility issues in the media. These are “your cue[s] to be on the lookout for an opportunity to file comments.” There are over 2.6 million residential electric customers in Wisconsin; yet, in 2017, fewer than 750 public comments were filed with the PSC across all dockets and cases.

Public comments enter the formal record which commissioners are required to review and consider in making determinations. Content observes, “The commission can only make decisions that reflect the wishes of the public if it hears from the public.”

Often, people will join forces with the Citizens Utility Board to make sure their voices are amplified when it comes to issues before the PSC. CUB works on behalf of customers to intervene in these cases, providing technical information, expert witnesses and attorneys, and other resources that would be difficult for typical Wisconsin residents to provide on their own. “The evidence and testimony provided on the technical side of the regulatory process carries a great deal of weight, and makes up a great deal of evidence the PSC relies on when making its decisions.” explains Content. “So whether it’s CUB, or another ratepayer organization, support the groups that will make sure you have a voice at the table when all the wonky stuff is going on.”

page, where we help to demystify electricity decisions, provide learning resources, and highlight how everyday people can find their role in our energy democracy.

wisconsinacademy.org/cleaner-greener

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F

or some people, the most effective way to influence the electricity system may be to step into a leadership role. By gaining a seat at the table, leaders can make decisions on behalf of utility customers that can directly affect electricity projects, rates, energy sources, and other elements that can lead to systemic change.

A number of mayors and other local leaders throughout Wisconsin (and the United States) have pledged to fight climate change by doing their share to uphold the emissions goals articulated in the 2016 Paris Agreement. In response to the Trump Administration’s abandonment of those goals, Eau Claire’s City Council directed the city’s Sustainability Advisory Committee and city staff to develop local recommendations in line with the landmark agreement. This process led to Eau Claire adopting ambitious sustainability goals: achieving carbon neutrality and obtaining 100% renewable energy for city operations and the wider community of Eau Claire by 2050. Nine Wisconsin mayors—representing Bayfield, Kenosha, La Crosse, Milwaukee, and other cities and towns—are members of the Climate Mayors coalition, which pledges to uphold the Paris Agreement goals and take other local action on climate change.

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Citizens can talk to elected officials and voice their support for climate and energy goals, or suggest more aggressive measures than those currently in place. Many local communities across Wisconsin are setting ambitious goals for greater energy independence and greenhouse gas reductions. In addition to Eau Claire, the cities of Madison and Middleton have also passed resolutions to power their communities with 100% renewable resources by 2050. Over 140 Energy Independent Communities in Wisconsin have adopted a goal to generate 25% of their energy from renewable sources by 2025. County boards of supervisors from over thirty counties have adopted resolutions helping property owners to obtain low-cost, long-term loans for renewable energy and efficiency improvements through Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing.

These efforts often start with a vision for change—from a passionate citizen who regularly voices opinions at committee meetings or a mayor who represents his or her community’s best interests by committing to a carbon-reduction goal.

A number of municipal governments have formed sustainability committees composed of private citizens to advise local elected officials. Boardman & Clark attorney Richard Heinemann, who also serves on the Sustainable Madison Committee, suggests, “getting involved in your local community’s sustainability committee, if one exists, or helping to start one, if one does not. These committees can be a great way to help shape policies around energy that directly impact your community.” One recent community-led example is the creation and approval of a new sustainability commission by Green Bay’s City Council in September 2018. The various community stakeholders comprising the commission will begin by considering pathways the city can take toward realizing a renewable energy-driven future and looking at other possibilities to make a more livable and sustainable Green Bay. Not surprisingly, communities that create citizen-led sustainability committees and provide resources such as dedicated staff and funding toward achieving sustainability goals make the most progress on efficient and renewable energy. Getting involved as a citizen could mean contacting alders or other local officials to register support for prioritizing sustainability efforts, volunteering to serve on a committee, or showing up at meetings to register public comments. Leadership also comes in the form of volunteering or working for an organization that advocates for clean electricity.

Leadership sometimes means selecting the right kind of leader.

According to Content, “people need to vote” if they want to create systemic change on multiple levels. The PSC, a powerful player in the way decisions are made by and for Wisconsin’s electric utilities, is an independent agency headed by three commissioners. However, Content explains, “Commissioners are political appointees. This means that state elections have a tendency to shape the policies at the PSC, much in the same way that presidential elections shape the Supreme Court.”

Federal, state, and local governments decide on many other issues that affect Wisconsin’s electricity system. From ratifying international agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to setting

renewable portfolio standards to investing in local energy efficiency programs, elected officials make many decisions on behalf of the public concerning the energy that we use every day.

“Obviously, elections and politics shape more than just the utility industry,” says Content. “But, when election season rolls around, make sure to give [some] thought as to how your utility bills might be affected. Ask your assemblyperson, state senator, or the governor what their position is on utility issues that matter to you.” With the mid-term elections approaching this November, there is an opportunity for citizens to shape decisions related to Wisconsin’s electricity system and other public services.

T

he ways in which electricity arrives in our homes and businesses, ready to power our lives at the flip of a switch, are directly connected to the current and future health of our communities and environment. We all deserve to have a say about what’s best for the health of our families and planet. That’s why it’s important to be an informed and active participant in our energy democracy.

The good news is that you don’t have to be an expert on all of the electricity system’s complexities in order to effect change. There are many places where a concerned citizen can influence this system.

You don’t have to switch your incandescent light bulbs to LEDs and then feel helpless as to what else you can do. It’s possible to make meaningful change at multiple levels. And just because you can’t go big doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. Whether you educate yourself to make informed decisions, advocate for cleaner electricity, work your way into a leadership role, or simply vote—there’s an important role for you.

Chelsea Chandler is the director of the Wisconsin Academy’s Environmental Initiatives. She holds degrees in science and policy, and brings her interdisciplinary experience to researching and communicating climate change solutions. Chelsea lives on an organic farm in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin with her husband and dog, and spends her free time playing soccer, kayaking, cooking, and traveling.

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Photo Essay

LIFE’S RICH PAGEANT PH OTOS BY STEPH EN M I LAN OWSKI

Flattery is not my business. While I’m a portrait photographer, I make images of strangers at events—parades, fairs, pageants, even watermelon-eating contests— that are generally hostile environments for portraiture.

The history of portraiture is one long and ugly tradition of flattery, wholesale lying, and public relations deception. Clearly, humans don’t want to be rendered as they actually appear in daily life. Instead, we would rather be enhanced, visually embellished, lit and photographed as we wish we looked.

I like to think of my pursuit of a new kind of portraiture as a one-man crusade against those false 17th century court paintings and vainglorious images of business titans and corporate board members, even against studio portraits in general. If it were up to me I’d throw out the whole lot.

When I photograph, I’m looking for individuals, couples, or families that I haven’t seen before. Of course, in a crowd almost everyone qualifies as overlooked. Yet I want to show you or point to someone who truly has been missed. I look to create portraits that you have not seen before, something new.

It’s a difficult and uncomfortable process because I’m asking strangers to stop and yet not pose for me, to ignore me, even. Which leads to the inevitable question: “Why do you want to photograph me?” My answer is always brief and entirely true: “Because you look great.”

Stephen Milanowski, 2018

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Photo Essay

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Photo Essay

Stephen Milanowski is both an advertising photographer and an anti-advertising image-maker whose work for Planet Propaganda and other agencies has been featured in Communications Arts. His non-advertising work has appeared in the Museum of Modern Art’s Celebrations, Animals, and Birds collections and was shown in two MMoCA Wisconsin Triennial exhibitions. Milanowski’s photographs are part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Toledo Museum of Art, and Cincinnati Art Museum. He lives in Middleton with his wife Marguerite, and the two have three wonderful children: Nicholas, Anna, and Grace.

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Discovery

GENDER, MEMORY, AND THE AGING BRAIN

BY LAU RA L. OTTO

E

ven as you read this sentence, a neurochemical process has begun that will

determine how long you remember it. And this process happens differently in men than in women, who are three times more likely to develop memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease as they age. Research indicates that a decline in estrogen is connected to memory loss, but scientists don’t have a complete understanding

Neuropsychologist Karyn Frick (center), postdoctoral fellow Wendy A. Koss (left), and graduate student Miranda Schwabe (right) in the Frick Lab at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee where they examine the complex relationship between hormones and memory in the brain.

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UWM Photos/Troye Fox

of how or why this happens.

Discovery

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Discovery

AXON

NEURON CELLS SYNAPSE AXON TERMINALS

CELL BODY OUTER MEMBRANE NUCLEUS DENDRITES

Neurons (or nerve cells) are specialized cells that transmit and receive electrical signals in the body. Neuron-to-neuron connections are made onto the dendrites and cell bodies of other neurons. These connections, known as synapses, are the sites at which information is carried from the first neuron (the presynaptic neuron) to the target neuron (the postsynaptic neuron). The synapses are the areas Frick and her research team are studying in order to understand the role estrogen plays in the neurotransmissions that lead to memory formation and retention.

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Researcher Karyn Frick, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM), is working to understand the role of estrogen in memory loss and develop treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, which is the fifth-leading cause of death among Americans age 65 years and older.

Scientists already know that memory deficits are linked to a decline in estrogens, hormones found throughout the body that diminish during menopause. Estrogens are lipid molecules that act in the brain by binding to protein receptors on the surface of neurons, which in turn prompts chemical changes at the cellular level that mediate memory, attention, and mood, even addictive behaviors. Estrogens enhance brain functions in men, too, and testosterone is converted to estrogens in the male body for just this purpose.

Frick comes at the question of why memory problems arise more often in women than men as they age by watching mice at play. In her lab on the third floor of Garland Hall, Frick and her research team carefully document how well the mice navigate mazes, as well as what happens when they encounter a new toy or one that has been moved to an unexpected location. Over time, she and her research team have observed that the female middle-aged mice seemed “mentally old” compared to males of the same age, exhibiting symptoms of cognitive decline sooner than the males.

According to Frick, gender makes a big difference in how our brains age.

As with most diseases of the brain, the answer isn’t a simple one.

Frick notes that doctors can’t just replace estrogens to prevent or reverse memory problems because, as with the mice, these hormones act differently on subjects who are different ages and who have differing levels of mental stimulation. While estrogens are needed to maintain bone density and healthy cholesterol levels, they are also linked to the incidence of depression and other mood disorders. Moreover, hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women can carry harmful side effects, such as an increased risk of breast cancer and cardiovascular problems.

To identify potential new drugs for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease—ones that don’t carry dangerous side effects and are equally effective for men and women—Frick must first unravel the intricate chain of cellular events through which estrogens enhance memory.

To her, it’s a puzzle not unlike the mazes her mice must navigate to capture a prize.

During her undergraduate years at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Frick decided to pursue psychology. Then as now, her need to understand complexity was part of the appeal for researching how the brain works. Over time, Frick refined her focus to the brain’s hippocampus region, which is crucial for memory yet deteriorates with age and Alzheimer’s disease.

For me, the research is like detective work,” she says. “What’s really exciting is when you read something that triggers an I wonder what would happen if … moment.”

Memory starts and ends in the brain, where signals are sent along “relay stations” between two neurons, highly specialized cells that process and transmit intercellular signals. The axon, essentially the communication line for these signals, docks at either the outer membrane of the receiving neuron or one of its many dendrites, extensions that resemble tree branches protruding from the

Discovery

receiving neuron’s wall. Frick’s team studies what happens on the molecular level at these docking points.

Chemicals called neurotransmitters direct brain communications when they bind to receptors found on neurons and their dendrites.

Inside the receiving cell, neurotransmitters tell proteins to carry out genetic instructions, including memory-related tasks. Once it begins, the memory-related communication will happen with or without the estrogen. However, when estrogen is incorporated into the communication chain it amplifies the process, strengthening the memory created.

As estrogen production in the body winds down when menopause arrives, memory problems arise. “It’s not like menopausal women can’t remember anything,” notes Frick. “But with estrogens, they remember better.”

A few pieces of the puzzle came together in 2013, when Frick was the first researcher to link estrogens to one of the chemical processes known to make and strengthen memories. For estrogens to be effective, they must attach to specific receptors within both the dendrite and the outer membrane of the receiving neuron.

Frick’s research team discovered that in order for the receptors in the two areas to carry estrogen’s message on to proteins inside the cell, a third receptor—for the neurotransmitter glutamate—must also be involved. The combination unleashes a cascade of cellular signaling that enables an enzyme, called extracellular signalregulated kinase, or ERK, to create a memory enhanced by estrogen.

Frick’s latest research has revealed some crucial differences in how this memory process work for women and for men. She’s discovered that, in women, the presence of estrogen links the hippocampus to a different part of the brain—the prefrontal cortex, where long-term memories are stored—and boosts memory mechanisms in both areas. Frick also has found that the activation of ERK in women occurs at the neuron’s outer membrane, where the receptors meet the dendrites. This is an important discovery, because proteins located within the cell’s outer membrane make for better targeting through drug delivery than those found inside the cell body.

But when Frick and UWM postdoctoral fellow Wendy Koss investigated the signaling chain in male mice infused with a potent form of estrogen, they got a surprise: Memory formation doesn’t happen through ERK activation as it does in females. “If the biochemical events leading to enhanced memory are different,” Frick says, “then you may need to develop drugs tailored to the mechanism specific for each gender.”

Armed with this new knowledge and in collaboration with partners at other universities, Frick is helping to kick-start the pharmacology for drug development by testing compounds that mimic the effects of estrogens but bind to a particular estrogen receptor that doesn’t induce negative health side effects. Early testing of one such compound indicated promising results in female mice.

One reason so little is known about the effects of estrogen in the body is that, for decades, researchers excluded females from studies in order to simplify their research. As a result, medical research is missing vital details on diseases and conditions—stroke, osteoporosis, and depression to name a few—that manifest differently in women and men.

One reason so little is known about estrogen’s effects in the body is that, for decades, researchers excluded females in order to simplify their studies. As a result, medical research is missing vital details on diseases or conditions— stroke, osteoporosis, and depression to name a few— that manifest differently in women and men.

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UWM Photos/Troye Fox

Discovery

to the success of the scientific endeavor. Through her teaching and mentorship, she’s inspired hundreds of students, particularly women and minorities, to pursue careers in neuroscience. Since joining the UWM faculty in 2010, Frick has hired mostly young women to help run her lab. She says she views her graduate students more as apprentices or colleagues than as students, regardless of their gender.

“It may be that deficiencies that exist in women’s health are attracting young women to the field,” she says. “I recently went to a conference of the Organization for the Study of Sex Differences, which included research on all aspects of health like gut microbiome, pain, and cardiovascular disease. About 80% of the attendees were women.”

Frick frequently speaks at conferences and symposia across the U.S., and she was recently named Investigator of the Year by the Alzheimer’s Association’s Southeastern Wisconsin Chapter. She’s also compiling and editing a book detailing the role of estrogens in cognitive functioning.

Frick’s work brings the wider conversation on women’s health to bear on the aging brain. “Few women are aware of the importance of talking about hormone replacement therapy with their physicians if they have a family history of Alzheimer’s,” she says. And yet, some of her research has shown that such therapy supports memory only if begun at the onset of menopause. Beginning the regimen later actually has detrimental effects on memory.

“It’s a powerful motivator for me and my students to know that our findings could ultimately help people,” Frick says. “Every finding allows us to see a new aspect of the puzzle and then put the pieces together.”

A version of this article first appeared in UWM Research magazine, 2018.

Drugs used to treat Alzheimer’s disease can manage some symptoms, but only for a relatively short time. Currently there’s no treatment to stop the disease or even to reduce some of the cognitive symptoms. Frick and her team are trying to understand how hormones affect memory on a cellular level, so that drugs can be developed to target certain molecules.

Because of this disparity, the National Institutes of Health and the Federal Drug Administration have established new policies over the past twenty years intended to close the gender gap in medical research. Today, most medical studies include human subjects or animal models of both sexes.

While pleased with the progress in combating gender disparity in studies, Frick notes that interpretations of “mixed” male-female data are still questionable if the researchers don’t understand the individual endocrinology to begin with. “Researchers may say the behavior of models of both sexes is the same,” she says. “But it may be, as we are finding [with memory], that the biological process to get to the same end behavior is different. If you just looked at the behavioral level you’d miss them, upping the risk of more broadly sweeping conclusions.”

While noting the need for studies to take gender distinctions into account more carefully, Frick sees gender equity as the key

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Laura L. Otto is a senior writer in the Division of University Relations and Communications at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Otto creates promotional material, engages with media, and writes articles about the University, generating content in the areas of science, technology, commercialization, and architecture. Her writing has gained national media coverage of UWM research in outlets such as National Geographic News, the Washington Post, and NPR.

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@ watrous gallery

Maggie Sasso, Staysail (Drifting), 2018. Photographic documentation of performance with handwoven sail; 36 x 22 inches. Photo by Ben Dembroski.

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@ watrous gallery

MAGGIE SASSO & NATHANIEL STERN

M

aggie Sasso and Nathaniel Stern, the two Milwaukee-based artists featured in our

forthcoming James Watrous Gallery exhibition, use somewhat unconventional means to achieve their artistic ends: Where Sasso uses fiber art to create installations that transform recognizable objects into unusual metaphors, Stern dons a desktop scanner, computing device, and custom-made battery pack to “perform images into existence.� We asked these two artists, both of whom harness the power of performance in their work, to share some thoughts about their respective histories, processes, and selected works made for their shows at the Watrous Gallery.

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Ben Dembroski

@ watrous gallery

Frank Dรถring

Maggie Sasso, Semaphore-1-Y (from Y.H.W.), 2018. Handwoven cotton, mahogany, photographic documentation, 6 x 5 feet.

Maggie Sasso, Four In A Boat and the Tide Rolls High, 2016. Fabric, rope, hardware, 25 x 10 x 12 feet.

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@ watrous gallery

MAGGIE SASSO Maggie Sasso uses fiber art to transform recognizable objects into impossible metaphors. She produces conceptual bodies of work that express macrocosmic ideas through microcosmic detail in order to examine the role of material culture in relationship to our collective past. Sasso received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and her BFA from Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, where she was born and raised. She currently works at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design as the Textiles Lab Technician and an adjunct lecturer.

How does your background influence your work?

I grew up in rural Kentucky and was fortunate to be the child of two talented artists who exposed me to art, museums, music, and books.

My parents made things for me and with me. At UW–Madison, I was taught contemporary craft and was encouraged to produce objects that were as well-made as they were conceptually profound. While I was not formally educated in fiber arts, my mother did teach me how to sew in high school. And even though I received both of my degrees in woodworking, I continued to pursue fiber arts projects. For years I worried that I was somehow cheating because I kept making work in what I deemed the “simpler” medium. Then it finally dawned on me that with fiber arts I was playing to my own strengths.

What inspired the strong maritime current in your new works?

I’ve always lived around water: Kentucky’s Land Between the Lakes; Whidbey Island’s Puget Sound; Madison’s Monona and Mendota; Portland’s Willamette River, with the Pacific Ocean a quick car trip away; and, most captivating of all, Milwaukee’s Lake Michigan. But, for the most part, my relationship to water has either been observational or lightly recreational.

Then, while doing research for a 2010 show, I found a book of sea charts. I became enamored with the aesthetics of ships and sailors.

It’s a flexible aesthetic, one that can be overtly humorous and stylized or quite somber; it can be industrial or highly ornate. There is a strong musical aspect to maritime life, too, and so many songs that tell stories were also designed to keep crews organized. One of my previous bodies of work, Haul Away Home, is named for a song that I wrote based on an old sea shanty called, “Haul Away Joe.” The original song, known as a tack-and-sheet, is repetitive and rhythmic, sung to keep everyone in time while raising the sails up the mast.

The staysail’s job is to keep the boat steady as the main sail is raised and lowered—a metaphor for motherhood if I’ve ever encountered one.

Your installations and performances often suggest a complex backstory. Do you typically begin with a narrative in mind, or does the story emerge as you create the artwork?

Fore and Aft, my show at the James Watrous Gallery, is an interrogation of the textiles of maritime culture. How dependent are boats on textiles? What happens to the textiles as they deteriorate? Where do nautical craft and contemporary craft intersect? How does the material language of, say, a domestic dishrag contrast with the largely masculine pastime of sea exploration?

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@ watrous gallery

Nathaniel Stern, Toppling, 2018. Multi-panel performative image metal print on aluminum, 18 x 30 inches.

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@ watrous gallery

Visitors will encounter a ship’s quarterboard sign, rendered in tapestry, handmade rope absurdly rigging the gallery (James Watrous would make a great name for a ship, by the way), and two handwoven objects, Staysail and Y.H.W., which are really about a mother and a daughter. This subject matter should have come as no surprise, as I became a mother three and a half years ago.

Simply put, a staysail is the smallest sail at the front of a foreand-aft rigged sailboat of any size. Its job is to keep the boat steady as the main sail is raised and lowered—a metaphor for motherhood if I’ve ever encountered one. Staysail began with a consideration of vulnerability. What happens to the staysail in the event of a shipwreck? Does it quickly degenerate at the bottom of the sea, or become loose and make its way to shore? Even after hand-weaving this sail in order to generate a worn, weathered appearance, I felt that to truly explore my questions the object needed to perform. So I asked a photographer friend to meet me on the shores of Lake Michigan at 4:00 am where we ceremoniously tossed the sail into the waters. The photos of its journey to shore are eerie and complicated and capture what I imagine to be the experience of stumbling onto evidence of a shipwreck.

Here the Staysail story intersects with Y.H.W., which is composed of two semaphore flags, handwoven in the same cotton used to make dishcloths. This time the objects perform with a model: my mother.

Her short gray hair speaks volumes as she signals navigational instructions toward an empty sea. The letters stand for something, but also spell out the inverse of a simple question: Why? For me, this performance is about staying brave in the face of tragedy, not giving up, and, yet, slowly coming to terms.

By presenting the photographs next to the objects as if they were displayed in a museum, the viewer is invited into the past life of the object, the narrative of its history. ___________________________________________

NATHANIEL STERN

The dynamism between my body, the technology, and the landscape is transformed into archival artworks that enfold time and space, sensation and action.

Wearing a desktop scanner, computing device, and custom-made battery pack, Nathaniel Stern wriggles across tables, swings over flowers, pogos over bricks, and follows the wind over water lilies in ponds to capture beautiful and surprising scans, which are then produced as archival artworks. Stern holds a joint appointment as associate professor in Art+Design and Mechanical Engineering at UW–Milwaukee, and is an associate researcher at the University of Johannesburg. His book, Ecological Aesthetics: artful tactics for humans, nature, and politics, which outlines an ecological approach to art and aesthetics, was recently published by Dartmouth College Press.

What inspired you to strap on a scanner to create images?

The idea came after I had been working with interactive art for a number of years and was asked to produce art for a more traditional gallery setting. At first, I used a digital scanner on the gallery itself— the walls, floor, benches, etc.—and, as I moved around, “compressed” each space and object to the size of the scanner face. Later, using my computer, I re-stretched these spaces and objects to their original

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@ watrous gallery

Nathaniel Stern, moving-thinking-feeling, 2018. Multi-panel performative image metal print on aluminum, 52 x 51 inches.

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@ watrous gallery

size. The resulting images looked like a cross between impressionist landscapes, surreal objects, and abstract expressionist textures. I dubbed the new form, Compressionism.

My favorite living artist, William Kentridge, came to that first Compressionist exhibition opening and suggested I go out and scan the landscape. This led to my current body of work, of which Autumnal Tints is a part. For this type of work, I strap a desktop scanner, computing device, and custom battery pack to my body, and then perform images into existence. The dynamism between my body, the technology, and the landscape is transformed into archival artworks that enfold time and space, sensation and action.

I began by scanning botanical gardens in Johannesburg and, over the years, have produced a dozen bodies of work in this vein, including a 250-square-foot water lily installation (inspired by Monet’s painting at the MoMA, which I often visited as a teen), a series of underwater prints with a marine-rated scanning rig (at the suggestion of my brother-in-law, a scuba instructor), and now, in part thanks to public parks and media scholar Richard Grusin, a series of metal prints that came from the fall foliage of the Milwaukee Lakefront.

It’s funny. The technology has changed so much: scanners were high tech in 2006 but are quaint at this point. Yet the work’s potency as rippling images, exploring how we move and are moved by technologies, bodies, and landscapes—it still works. And I love it when people suggest new things to try or go out and do it themselves.

Is there a paradox in using digital tools to amplify messages about how we use our senses—our bodies—to relate to our physical environment?

I don’t think so. Computers have bodies. We carry them around with us all the time in our pockets and backpacks. Too, information has substance, and takes up space in the form of data. If I am the only one who knows something and I die, well, that knowledge is gone. Websites need servers for storage and cables to travel; books need paper, computers, or tablets for reading and writing; wi-fi literally resonates with what we want to know via the air around us.

Information is not immaterial. I mean this in both the literal and figurative sense.

Conversely, while we sometimes forget our bodies in front of a screen, our backs and eyes later remind us that we should have given them more attention (something I am aware of as I age).

And so a lot of my work amplifies these relationships, has us move and be moved, think through and think with, concepts and materials, data and things, together. I have us play between bodies and language and their technologies in my interactive art; between sensing and images and their workings in the prints from the Autumnal Tints series.

For me, the Autumnal Tints series has always been an exploration of the relation between body, technology, and landscape. The combination of the earthy and vivid colors, the captured movement, and the reference to digital forms because of that sheen, and the lines and pixels that point to the scanner and computer matrix, all work to amplify how each—body, technology, and the landscape—are never that far apart.

SEE THE EXHIBITIONS On view at the James Watrous Gallery in Overture Center for the Arts 201 State Street • Madison

MAGGIE SASSO FORE & AFT

NATHANIEL STERN AUTUMNAL TINTS

NOVEMBER 16 – JANUARY 27 Please join us for these related events, which are free and open to the public:

OPENING RECEPTION

Friday, November 30 • 5–7:00 pm with informal talks by the artists in the gallery beginning at 5:30 pm

ART@NOON TALK

with exhibitions coordinator Angela Johnson Friday, January 25 • 12–1:00 pm Thanks to Wisconsin Academy donors, members, and the following exhibition sponsor:

Tell us a little more about how you make the actual prints.

Each multi-panel, modular work is printed on high-gloss metal in a process whereby the ink is heated into a gas and then pressed into porous aluminum, creating a sheen not unlike a computer screen.

They are mounted and framed, floating and without glass, in wood boxes.

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Fiction

Aeshnidae

BY JACK HARRIS

T

he day had wrapped us up in the blanket of its heat and refused to let us out, so much did it love us. Or

maybe it was just lonely. I had spent a lot of time that summer thinking about ways to anthropomorphize the days, mostly because they were never ending and inescapable, and still couldn’t come to a conclusion about whether they were full of people or void of them and so were eternally searching for company. When I asked Riley about it, she said that maybe the days didn’t know what they wanted.

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Fiction

I liked that about her. That she never shot me down. Other kids would have said I was stupid thinking like I did, but not Riley. Not that August.

“Maybe summer knows it’s dying,” Riley’s long brown hair spilled across the damp plastic of the lake dock, “and it’s scared.”

“Hmm.” I didn’t have much to say to that. I was better at thinking grand thoughts than I was at putting them into words. Riley could talk for hours and hours, and I think she liked me because I was the only boy on the face of the planet who could just sit still and listen and nod my head instead of interrupting.

After our newborn conversation petered out, we both went back to staring at the sky. The gentle waves of the lake rocked the floating dock as if lulling us to sleep. Though the lake on which we both lived was surrounded by other houses and the day was clear and bright and hot, we were the only kids out. And even though we were both in our swimsuits, Riley in a two-piece that showed off the caramel stripe of her belly, we were dry. The sun had claimed all the water from our skin soon after we crawled out of the lake.

I had spent a lot of that afternoon contemplating that caramel stripe.

Part of me marveled at how Riley—who was normally as white as could be—could have gotten so tan while I hadn’t, even though we went everywhere together practically every day.

Part of me wondered where her single-piece, blue-and-pink striped suit from last summer had gone. I liked that suit a lot. It matched my blue trunks, which were still the same. Still another part wondered how Riley didn’t feel exposed in her two-piece swimsuit, which was ridiculous because my entire chest and more than half of my scrawny legs were bare, but it was different for girls, wasn’t it?

Another part of me wondered why I wasn’t wondering other things about her stripe instead of all this garbage.

Riley rolled over onto her belly, shifting around so I could tell she was looking at me. “Only a little bit until your birthday, Will.”

“Yeah.”

“Thirteen. You’re gonna be a teenager, like me. We’re practically adults.”

“Yeah.”

“I bet nobody’s gonna treat us like adults, though. They’re still just gonna call us dumb middle schoolers next month.”

“Yeah.” When I finally looked at her, Riley had gotten up and was standing on the edge of the dock, back to the water, toes curled around the plastic. I knew what she was about to do.

“Don’t backflip. You always hurt yourself.”

Her eyes sparkled. An eyebrow climbed high on her forehead. “Summer’s dying,” she said, and jumped.

I

tramped through the woods surrounding our small subdivision, having long since abandoned the walking path that the elderly neighbors used when they felt like emerging from their year-long hibernations. I clutched a cheap plastic walkie-talkie in one hand and a net in the other.

“General R. to Lieutenant W,” my walkie-talkie crackled in a fuzzy imitation of Riley’s voice. “Come in, I repeat, come in. Over.”

“Why am I the Lieutenant and you get to be the General?”

“Sorry?”

I sighed. “Lieutenant W. to General R. Why do I have to be Lieutenant? Over.”

“Because,” Riley said, but this time for real: she stepped out from behind a tree, hands cupped, hair falling in curtains over her face. “I’m older than you. Now shut up and come and look at this.”

I sighed again for an effect that was lost on her, and of course dutifully obeyed. Our foreheads knocked together when we leaned in over her hands. My heart hammered.

Slowly, slowly, Riley slid her fingers apart to reveal a glittering blue dragonfly, calmly perched on the creases of her palm. “Infraorder Aeshnidae.” Riley’s voice was hushed with wonder. “And I didn’t even accidentally break her wings catching her.”

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Fiction

I swallowed and managed to nod. We had gone dragonfly hunting a thousand times, had stood like this a thousand times last summer, but this seemed so different. It felt different. It felt like everything my other friends had been talking about, everything about girls that we used to call gross.

Except it also wasn’t. Their words weren’t the thoughts in my head and my thoughts were not like theirs. Did everyone have to think so hard about this, why was my brain like this— “Will.” Riley looked at me. The dragonfly in her hands flexed its wings and flew away. I wanted to follow it. I wanted to be anywhere but right here. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought we talked about expanding your vocabulary.”

“Sure.”

She was still standing so close to me. I knew what she wanted and I couldn’t understand why.

Slowly, without speaking, Riley leaned in and touched her lips to mine.

I didn’t move. Her eyes were closed but mine weren’t and I had a perfect view of every single hair in her eyebrows and the stray ones between them and the pores on her forehead. I wondered where the dragonfly went, if the others would hate it for letting itself be captured.

Riley drew back. Her eyes flitted across my face. I tried to swallow again but couldn’t. Something churning and miserable and hot was boiling under my sternum—sternum, a word we had learned last year in biology—and for some unholy reason I felt tears pricking at the corners of my eyes.

I turned and ran. The dragonfly net was no longer in my hands but there was no way I was going back to get it. All I could do was run and I was crying and I was crying and I was crying and I couldn’t stand myself.

Everything was weird now.

I didn’t know what would happen if I saw her again.

She expected something out of me that I wasn’t capable of giving.

M

y legs burned from the strain of pushing the bike pedals in infinite loops but I ignored them. That day was colder than most had been and I probably should have brought a jacket but I ignored that too, and instead focused on trying not to cry again. It had been a week since the woods incident and I still hadn’t seen Riley again, mostly because I hated her, but I couldn’t comprehend why, and the looping of it, the endless turning around like my bike pedals, spinning in confusion, was driving me crazy. Riley was speaking a language I didn’t know the words to.

The wind tugged at my hair. Why would she do that? It pushed gently at my sides as if willing me off my bike and into the scrubby grass beside the road. Why would she ruin it?

And she had ruined it. Never in my life had I gone a week without talking to Riley. Everything was weird now. I didn’t know what would happen if I saw her again. She expected something out of me that I wasn’t capable of giving.

Why not?

Plenty of other boys in my class had talked about kissing girls this year. They had laughed about it after they had finished blushing about it.

Why can’t you just kiss her?

I hate her. I hate her.

I felt like a wild animal backed into a corner. I felt that churning anger under my sternum and thought for a second I might like to punch myself in the chest just to see if that would quiet it down. I biked harder.

The front wheel of the bike plunged into a pothole in the concrete, but the back wheel wasn’t paying attention and wanted to keep moving, so it did—up and over with me along for the ride.

I landed in the gravel shoulder of the road with an oomph.

My hands had reflexively stuck out so I managed not to hit my head, but it cost me: the gravel dug painfully into my palms and legs.

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Fiction

The tears came but I bit them back. I wouldn’t cry. I was almost thirteen and I would not cry.

I yelled the worst swear word I knew and didn’t feel any better.

A

lot of people came to my birthday party. In school I think I was generally liked, or I hoped so, and besides our neighborhood was small and there was free cake and we lived on the lake so people showed up, towels in hand, obligatory presents prepared. When they asked about the Band-Aids on my palms, I told them I had burned myself making macaroni and cheese.

“Happy birthday,” one boy said to me. He was new. Had moved here at the end of April and had only been in class for a few weeks before school let out.

I think his name was Marco. His smile was nice, and when he said “happy birthday,” it seemed like he actually wanted to come up to me and say it, like it was a present all on its own. My cheeks went hot. “Thanks.”

“William, right?”

“Yeah. But most people call me Will.”

“You did the presentation about dragonflies.”

“Um, yeah, I did, actually,” I said, surprised he had remembered. There was something about his face that drew me in closer. It was nice, like his smile.

“Aeshnidae,” Marco said, and I was reminded that I was the one who had taught Riley the Latin.

“Right. But that’s just their family name. My favorite species is Rhionaeschna multicolor, or the Blue-eyed Darner. They’re super rare in Wisconsin. I just think their blue is really—” I stopped, mortified, suddenly realizing how nerdy I sounded. “Um, sorry. I just, um ... I think dragonflies are cool,” I finished lamely.

Marco smiled again. “Me too. Blue’s my favorite color.”

J U D G E’S N OTE

VI CTO RIA H O USTO N

E

veryone at my birthday party eventually went swimming because it was the only thing to do, and for the first time I felt weird about taking my shirt off in front of all these other people.

I walked behind Marco on our way down to the lake.

He turned around to say something to me and caught me looking, which I hadn’t even known I was.

L

ater that evening, peoples’ moms started to show up and pick them off one by one until it was just me and Marco left, me resting on the edge of the dock with my shins in the water because I was skinny and tired, Marco because he was humoring me. I asked Marco where he’d moved from, and he said Arizona, and I asked why and he said his mom got a new job here, and I asked if he missed his friends and he said yes, a little, and after that we were quiet. It was cooling off as it got dark—the days were no longer so hot—and fireflies were beginning to appear, blinking away. I wondered, if I learned Morse code, would I be able to understand them?

Probably not. Those were kid thoughts. I was thirteen now. Kid thoughts were behind me.

“You know, you’re the only who hasn’t asked me,” Marco said.

“About what?”

He squirmed. It was the first time I had seen him look uncomfortable all evening. “You know ... if I had a girlfriend back home.”

It was a tough choice between this story and “Static” for first place, as “Aeshnidae” is also written with an immediacy that brings you right into the moment. Very visual, the brief vignettes in this story capture the sights and sounds of the setting.

Again, truth lies between the lines: an epiphany for the reader that is left unspoken—and satisfying.

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Fiction

“Oh.” I was suddenly very aware of every sensation vying for attention: my legs immersed in the water, the slippery green lake moss growing on the side of the dock and touching my calves, the drying water on my chest, Marco’s elbow near mine.

“I didn’t, if you wanted to know.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know why everyone always asks about that. It’s none of their business.” Marco’s jaw clenched and unclenched, as if he were working something in his mouth. And then, as if a storm had blown itself away, his whole face changed. He sighed. Smiled. Looked at me, and again I was painfully aware of being shirtless, but then Marco said, “open my present after I leave, okay?”

“Why?” “I hate watching people open presents.”

“Ok. I’ll wait.”

That nice smile again, the one that sparked a different feeling underneath my sternum. Marco stuck out his hand and asked, “friends?

I shook it, marveling at the goosebumps on my arm.

“Friends.”

I was suddenly very aware of every sensation vying for attention: my legs immersed in the water, the slippery green lake moss growing on the side of the dock and touching my calves, the drying water on my chest, Marco’s elbow near mine.

O

n the last day of summer, I was lying out on a chair in our backyard, half sleeping and half thinking about the day before. Though my eyelids were closed, they were lit up red from the sunlight.

A shadow fell over me. I cracked open an eye, and there stood Riley, towering over me, holding a box of frozen popsicles.

“I brought popsicles,” she said redundantly, and thrust the box towards me. “A peace offering.”

I made no move for the popsicles.

Riley sighed. “Look, they cost me three dollars and they’re gonna melt if you don’t eat them. But fine. Do you want to go swimming?”

“Not really.”

“Biking?”

“Can’t. Hands hurt too much.”

“Look, Will, I’m sorry. I messed up. I don’t know why I did that, but ... but I brought popsicles.”

She was at least making an effort. I opened my other eye, and gingerly snuck out a hand to grab a purple one. Riley seemed to relax a little, because she set the box down and edged her butt onto my chair. I made room for her because we were both tiny and could fit on the same sunchair, which I would have found embarrassing, had anyone been around to see it.

“Look, Will, I don’t like you.”

“Ouch.”

“You know what I mean. I don’t like like you, if that’s what you’re afraid of. And you obviously don’t like me.”

“Then why did you kiss me?”

“I don’t ... I don’t know.” Riley folded her hands on her stomach. Her elbow dug into my side, but I was used to it. “I guess I thought I had to?”

“What do you mean?” I asked the question even though I thought I understood. It was the most I had understood Riley in two weeks.

“I mean ... the way everyone talks about boys ... and how we always hang out together ... it just seemed like—” “Like we had to.”

“Yeah.”

“Now who’s the one who needs to expand her vocabulary?”

“Don’t be mean.” She flicked my arm. “I’m just glad you understand. I thought I was going crazy.”

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Fiction

“Everyone’s going crazy. We’re all teenagers now.”

“Summer’s dying,” Riley agreed.

“Look, Riley ... I’m sorry too.”

“Why?” “For avoiding you. For not kissing you back. Any other guy in our class would have loved to be kissing any girl, anywhere, no matter who the girl was. But I wasn’t.”

“The guys in our class are dumb.”

“Not all of them.” I could feel her sidelong stare burrowing into my forehead and couldn’t help but grin. “Marco. He seems cool.”

“Fascinating.”

“What’s fascinating?”

“You.” There was a smile in Riley’s voice, but before I could ask her about it, she had gotten up and was stretching her long arms above her head, making her t-shirt pull up to reveal that caramel stripe. This time it slid right by me without stopping to say hello. “See you at school tomorrow,” Riley called over her shoulder as she walked away in the direction of her house.

“And eat the rest of the popsicles or they’ll melt.”

F

or my birthday, Marco had gotten me a small, thick pocket guide to insects. I thumbed through the pages of dragonflies until I got to the one I was looking for.

I wrote a small note next to Rhionaeschna multicolor, halfway down the page: blue is his favorite color.

Summer, I finally decided, had neither been lonely or in love. It was just in the process of metamorphosis.

Originally from Mazomanie, Jack Harris is a Creative Writing and Graphic Design student at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. At Augustana, Harris is pursuing his lifelong passion for creating, especially fiction through his work on the college’s student magazine, SAGA, and learning new ways in which writing can change the world.

Read award-winning fiction from new and established Wisconsin writers at wisconsinacademy.org/fiction.

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Poetry

New Wisconsin Poetry Honorable Mention Poems from our 2018 Poetry Contest

Heading West on Hwy 54 My horoscope said Today is a ten.

You’re driving; I’m riding In a Cadillac convertible Through the pouring rain, Soaked to the skin, and more.

Lightening stretches through clouds, Flashing like a mirror ball.

We got Benny Goodman on the radio Until the station hisses And fades out of reach.

Up ahead, headlights shine Small promises That break like dawn Just beyond the hill.

Anna Hahm

Poet, essayist, and actor Anna Hahm served for decades as a guiding light for arts marketing in Madison, most notably as director of marketing for Overture Center for the Arts and Madison Civic Center. She has appeared on stages in various roles at Overture Center, Bartell Theater, Broom Street Theater, and Taliesin in Spring Green. Her new poetry collection, Eat Poetry, and play, Rainbows!

Rainbows! Rainbows! (Anna’s House), are forthcoming in 2019.

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Poetry

The Dying Farmer Act I Put me where I am useful just beneath the topsoil half-inch down of warmth and wet loam in my hands pitch me a shovel or rake let me get up when the sun splits land from sky and blazes There’s work to be done Act II Tell me to rest when darkness falls though I keep one ear to the barn where the calving goes when the sow spits outs piglets like drops of water and then rolls over on one or two short happy lives If I’m not there to save them put me in marketing or production or design and teach me a fresh use for duck tape the brave new ground

Kathryn Gahl is a writer, dancer, and registered nurse living in the Fox Cities. Her poems and stories appear in Eclipse, Hawaii Pacific Review, Permafrost, Porcupine Literary Arts Magazine, and Willow Review. Twice a Glimmer Train award finalist, Gahl received from Wisconsin People & Ideas two honorable mentions for poems and two third-place prizes for stories sent to the magazine’s annual writing contests.

Act III I want a part in a pioneering play and I’m fine to be the living tree on stage with no lines to speak Kathryn Gahl

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Poetry

The Mission She chops onions dumps them in black beans garnished with overcooked pork adds cumin and rosemary leftover out-of-date serendipity for the poor lined neatly on the other side the first wears ski pants in summer smiles at her then bends to share his dream of a perfect raspberry tart with the wispy haired man hunched over a shaky cane She heaps pork medley creamed corn on stainless steel tired migrant workers speak little English but hunger is universal wrinkled cheeks dry cracked lips this three-week-old child wrapped in a ballooncovered blanket needs milk She imagines the child lifted away from the tattooed man leading the woman dressed in purple black and blue past enemies at opposite tables Joe mumbles to his food gripping salt Jake stares out the dusty window as if watching some movie for this is neutral territory She stirs sauce up from the bottom refills bins with mixed breads eyeing the end of the line she stuffs turkey loaf cubes chunks of pork in her pockets Elisabeth Harrahy

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Elisabeth Harrahy is an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. Her poems have appeared in Slightly West and Praxis: Journal of Gender and Cultural Critiques. Her poem, “The Suitcase,” received Honorable Mention in the Wisconsin P e o p l e & I d e a s 2 0 1 7 Po e t r y Contest.

Poetry

Drawn Out Reticent, needs drawing out, Miss Rinehart scribbled on my sixth-grade report card.

I vowed to never return, but instead found myself rehearsing for the class play.

Co-stars Eugene and I headed a cast of tall flowers played by the pluckier pupils whose costumes were marvels—green wraps with face-framing petals big as umbrellas.

Surrounded by crepe paper arms, I asked to be a peony, but Miss Rinehart said I was born to be The Little Girl and Eugene The Little Boy. At rehearsal I had to hold Eugene’s sweaty hand, then run like the wind when he tried to walk me home.

I was to wear white shoes, so Mother borrowed a cousin’s clunky lace-up brogues.

Je r i McCo r m i c k , fo u n d e r of Fireweed Press and long-time teacher of creative writing in senior centers and the Elderhostel program, co-edited Love Over Sixty, an anthology of women’s poems. Her work appears in The Book of Irish American Poetry: From the 18th Century to the Present (Notre Dame Press), and she has been awarded writing fellowships and prizes for her works, including honorable mentions in the Wisconsin People & Ideas 2015 and 2016 Poetry Contests.

The star should wear sandals, I mumbled, but Mother stuffed the ugly boats with cotton, coated them with watery polish, and that was that.

On the dread day, the auditorium hummed, a clamorous garden materialized on stage, and The Little Girl and Little Boy stood among twenty-nine bowing blossoms, some sprouting new sandals. We remembered our lines.

The audience clapped. Miss Rinehart smiled, took me aside, said I’d done the school proud.

I returned the shoes, avoided Eugene, staged a life of success as best I could.

Jeri McCormick

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Book Review

Boy into Panther and Other Stories

by Margaret Benbow New Rivers Press, 190 pages, $17.00 Reviewed by Ronnie Hess

The New York Times critic A.O. Scott, writing in praise of the American short story in a 2009 article, noted how this particular prose form, sometimes maligned as minor or vestigial, could do more than a novel to illuminate the textures of ordinary life and the possibilities of language. Margaret Benbow artfully does just this in her new collection of short stories, Boy into Panther.

Benbow is a Madison-based writer with stories and poems appearing in many magazines and anthologies, including Poetry, Kenyon Review, and Prairie Schooner. Her first full-length poetry book, Stalking Joy, published in 1997, received the Walt McDonald First Book Award.

Benbow had me hooked a few pages into Boy into Panther. She has a wonderful talent for opening lines—“The big garlic-breathing snake of penitents whips its coils up and down the church aisles,” or “Simeon spread the glitter on his woman’s fine face.” And, frankly, any author who can reference a Queen of Sheba cake decorated with bittersweet chocolate leaves on the same page as a blue-veined, softreeking cheese is worth reading, in my book.

I would bet Benbow loves fine writing as much as fine dining, as food turns up repeatedly in Boy into Panther. It’s a consolation in the title story, “Boy into Panther,” where Consolata’s tender little sandwiches are “the only ones in the school that were innocent of crusts.” But food is also a vehicle for class, culture, and connection through, for instance, the mortadella and carved ham in Coyle’s Deli (“Joe Szabo and the Gypsy Bride”) or the Thanksgiving turkey “the size of a pony” (“Party Doll”). Food is even the force that drives a few of Benbow’s characters to take revenge.

There’s plenty of settling scores in these fourteen stories of passion, prejudice, struggle, and violence. It’s possible you might not find all the people here likeable—they’re raw, mean, opinionated, troubled, two-timing, scheming, and downright criminal. But they’re also full of brilliance, humor, grit, and heart.

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WISCONSIN PEOPLE & IDEAS

Meet Simeon Prophet, an outsider artist who bears an unsettling resemblance to the late Simon Sparrow, a preacher and mixedmedia painter who lived on Madison’s East Side before his death in 2000 (The Smithsonian and Milwaukee Art Museums hold some of his works). His nemesis, Big Johanna, an alcoholic, sometime street-person, hanger-on, demon, and guardian angel, ultimately becomes Simeon’s protector. Both appear in two stories, published originally in 2008 and 2013. In perhaps another Madison reference, there’s Chad, who drinks himself blind at the Kollege Klub.

Wandering throughout the story collection is Father Karl Dubroski, do-gooder priest at St. Rita’s, bailing people out, hearing confession, and trying to give last rites.

Taken together, the stories—written between 1985 and 2014—are not just a selection of stand-alone pieces that can be read in short order, but a much broader, almost seamless work that is a representation of nothing less than a community. In Boy into Panther we meet the Americans—straight and gay, white and blue collar, devout and agnostic, native and foreign-born—living among us. Indeed, they are us.

Award-winning journalist and poet Ronnie Hess is the author of five chapbooks and two culinary travel guides. Her most recent poetry collections are O Is for Owl (Borderland Books, 2018) and Canoeing a River With No Name (Bent Paddle Press, 2018). Her latest culinary guide is Eat Smart in Portugal (Ginkgo Press, 2017). She is a member of The Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission.

Book Review

The Collected Stories of Carol Wobig

by Carol Wobig Hidden Timber Books, 212 pages, $11.95 Reviewed by Elizabeth Wyckoff

If you’re looking for sentimentality, you won’t find it in The Collected Stories of Carol Wobig. Channeling the work of Elizabeth Strout, Alice Munro, and Marilynne Robinson, the Menomonee Falls-based Wobig crafts stories inhabited by calloused, practical, proud Midwestern women. They are teachers and bartenders and nuns with names like Edna, Edith, and Agnes. On top of their own personal struggles, these women have sisters with cancer, sons leading secret lives, and mothers who never let them take piano lessons. And, while they love their friends and family members, they also can’t stand them: “Here we go,” Eunice thinks as her daughter begins to weep over her troubled marriage. “Take off your stupid Packer hat,” Gwen thinks, but won’t say aloud, to her father at the Thanksgiving table. “What nerve,” Marge thinks, when her husband dies before she does.

Wobig’s stories are often as concise as her characters’ deadpan one-liners. Readers enter her protagonists’ complicated lives in the midst of things and sometimes exit after just one or two scenes.

Though it may leave readers longing for more, the technique imbues her work with a healthy dose of realism—many times the experiences that affect humans for a lifetime do happen in just an instant.

Wobig excels at depicting extraordinary moments that occur in the midst of the most ordinary lives: seemingly small decisions like smoking a final cigarette or learning how to drive represent lifechanging moments, like learning to accept a child’s shortcomings or processing the death of a loved one.

Eight of the sixteen stories (and one one-act play) that comprise this collection were previously published in Wobig’s first book, Poached Is Not an Option, in 2012. But the old stories blend harmoniously with the new to create a rich and cohesive fictional world.

Two new standout stories bookend the collection. In “The Piano,”

a recent widow named Marge makes plans to end her life, methodically turning a pair of drapes into her funeral dress, until she sees a piano for sale across the street. Wobig returns to Marge in the collection’s ultimate story, “Shoulder to Shoulder,” as she reassesses her role in the lives of her son and daughter and reconsiders her life’s purpose anew.

For the women of Wobig’s short fiction, as for so many of us, life is a constant series of reassessments and reconsiderations. The funny, authentic stories in The Collected Stories of Carol Wobig will leave you feeling as if you’re reading about an aunt, a neighbor, a daughter, or possibly even yourself.

Elizabeth Wyckoff’s short fiction has been published in Copper Nickel, The Collagist, and Quarterly West, and she received the 2016 Zona Gale Short Fiction Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers for “Like This, Like That.” Her nonfiction writing appears online and in print in Electric Literature, The Rumpus, Tin House, and Wisconsin People & Ideas. She lives in Madison, where she is an editor at the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

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BOOK REVIEW

To This I Am Native

by Richard Quinney Borderland Books, 112 pages, $25.00 Reviewed by Paul Buhle

Readers of Wisconsin People & Ideas need no elaborate introduction to writer/photographer/philosopher Richard Quinney, whose “Elegy for a Family Farm” was featured in the Winter 2018 issue.

What readers may not know is that Quinney’s Borderland Books, located in Madison, has for more than a decade offered an outlet for a variety of volumes on Wisconsin themes, naturally including his own combinations of photography and rumination. Borderland volumes, not large in number, are notable for their craftsmanship, right down to the careful choice of paper stock and binding. His new title, To This I Am Native, reflects the publisher’s continued determination to convey our sense of place here in Wisconsin through the aesthetic of an art book.

Most if not all of Quinney’s works draw from his farm-boy origins near Delavan, the history of the family farm going back several generations, and the reality of his own life as the last surviving family member and remaining steward of the land. But it is also important to note that his academic life as a prominent sociologist and founder of a field of study within criminology has shaped his way of writing about Wisconsin and even, perhaps, his use of the camera. He wishes to look closely and wants us, his readers, to look closely, too, at the landscape for its own sake, not merely as an extension of human need and desire.

In To This I Am Native the pictures do most of the talking, and the prose is spare. Quinney wants to tell us about his 2001 return to the farm, and how the return prompts a visual inventory of items left behind. The images that populate this volume reflect a certain starkness—no people are to be seen save the shadow of Quinney himself with his tripod, taking a picture—but also a naturalness of the landscape. He captures the fields and the buildings from many angles with a riveting intensity that, perhaps, only black and white photography can convey. Quinney looks carefully at the animal population, especially birds who make their homes on the farm. Winter adds a special sense of what could be taken as bleakness, but instead reflects the natural order of the season in which Quinney finds himself.

The interior of the house, seen through mundane objects such as an old Ellington piano, a vase on a counter with a nature scene above, or a dining room view of the yard, underscores a sense of transition. Quinney’s own lymphocytic leukemia, the author suggests, brings that transition into stark clarity: The farm is not timeless, neither is the artist-author recording its last moments under family guidance. But the farm has a presence, and he wants us to see that presence up close, accurately, as a Midwest moment.

Readers will treasure that candor as well as the artistry of this small volume. Perhaps, however, they will treasure more the ways in which it captures the creator of the volume, offering his own sometime rural Wisconsin life as a metaphor for our complicated, often conflicted, modern lives.

Paul Buhle, a retired Senior Lecturer at Brown University, attended graduate school in Madison from 1967 to 1971 and took a PhD in 1975. Buhle returned to Madison in 2009, and he is now affiliated with the Center for Jewish Studies.

Don’t know what to read? Check out reviews of new and interesting books by Wisconsin authors at wisconsinacademy.org/reviews.

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WISCONSIN PEOPLE & IDEAS

BOOK REVIEW

Wisconsin State Parks: Extraordinary Stories of Geology and Natural History

by Scott Spoolman Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 250 pages, $24.95 Reviewed by Mark Zimmermann

Science writer and naturalist Scott Spoolman not only knows Wisconsin’s natural world well, his fine new book, Wisconsin State Parks: Extraordinary Stories of Geology and Natural History, reflects a lifetime spent in the woods and wilds of the state. Part guidebook and part journal, Wisconsin State Parks explores 28 of Wisconsin’s more than one hundred state parks, forests, and recreation areas, providing the reader vivid and lively accounts of the landforms, waterways, flora, and fauna he finds along the way.

For instance, a trek through Interstate Park, which is situated on the St. Croix River in Polk County, inspires Spoolman to write: When you are hiking on one of the many trails in the park that pass through small groves of white or red pine, stop for a moment and close your eyes. Smell the scented air and listen for the delicate song of the wind in the pines. You might then imagine yourself to be in the vast, deep forest that once stood here atop gravel and soil dropped by the glacier, atop sandstone and limestone deposited by ancient seas, atop a bedrock of basalt laid down a billion years ago.

Wonder at the natural beauty and the geologic history of the region seems to be the default mode for Spoolman, and his on-thespot observations come across as deeply felt personal experiences as well as invitations to readers to have their own at these beautiful natural sites. Slow down and be in nature is the vibe I felt when I read Spoolman’s work—especially in his numerous “Trail Guide” sections, which will be especially valuable to those who want to follow, literally, in his footsteps.

Here is Spoolman on what hikers can expect at Rock Island State Park, located just off the tip of Door County: It does not afford stunning views of spectacular cliffs or waterfalls, but its trails lie easily in a quiet, undisturbed forest.

It affords a peaceful relaxing time in an ancient place and reminds you that such beauty is also quite spectacular.

Not only is Spoolman an engaging writer, his prose is complemented by the many beautiful, full-color photographs he took in every place he visited. An array of informative maps and charts round out this attractive, well-made book. I found the geologic timeline a particularly apt complement to the author’s dramatic descriptions of vulcanism, glaciation, and plate tectonics over periods ranging from tens of thousands to millions, even billions, of years. An unexpected pleasure of this book was the soothing effect that accompanied my contemplation of the eons and their inexorable forces upon the land we now call Wisconsin.

Deeply imbued with the ethos of stewardship and conservation, Spoolman’s Wisconsin State Parks: Extraordinary Stories of Geology and Natural History is a welcome and timely reminder of the wealth of our natural resources here in Wisconsin—and perhaps what we stand to lose if we continue to live as we do.

Mark Zimmermann is author of the Pushcart Prize-nominated collection Impersonations (Pebblebrook Press, 2015.

His poems have appeared in New Letters, Cream City Review, Verse Wisconsin, New Verse News, The Writer, and Vocabula Review. Zimmermann is a member of the Hartford Avenue Poets, and has served on the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission since 2004. He lives and teaches in Milwaukee.

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WISCONSIN PEOPLE & IDEAS

FICTION & POETRY CONTESTS Wisconsin writers win prizes, publication, and up to $500.

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wisconsinacademy.org/contests Get the attention your writing deserves through our fiction and poetry contests! Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine hosts annual writing contests for Wisconsin residents age 18 and over that provide cash, prizes, and publication. First-place winners in the Wisconsin People & Ideas fiction and poetry contests each receive $500 and one-week artist residencies at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point. Second-place winners receive $250 and third-place winners receive $100. First- through third-place winning stories and poems are published in print and online issues of Wisconsin People & Ideas, and all award-winning writers are invited to read their work at a special Wisconsin Book Festival event.

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